Lights, cameras, action! Senior writes school play

Felix Pina

Actors Destiny, Laura, Jorge, Damien, Abraham and Isabel in the bar scene.

Felix Pina, Reporter
April 24, 2018

Lights, cameras, action! Senior Robert De La Rosa has created a play that has the audience crying with laughter. “The Ballad of Roobie Rookie,” is the story of cowboys living in a futuristic wild west where the antagonist, “The Crooked Beak” wants to blow up the small town.

“Movies helped me create the story,”De La Rosa said. “They inspired me to write the story.”

De La Rosa said he has been working on the story five years. During these years, Austin Savage, founder and artistic director of The Border Theater, asked to help De La Rosa write the play.

“I was very interested in theater because I thought that writing plays was cool,” De La Rosa said.

After writing the play, Savage made his play into a screenplay, which was shown to the DV staff. Because of this, theater teacher Marissa Thurman asked De La Rosa if she could perform his play, to which he happily agreed to.

“I talked to Austin Savage (asking) if we can shorten the play,” Thurman said. “We also decided to perform the play for autism day.”

The play was performed in the plaza, which was new according to Thurman.

“It was never done before, and so I wanted to try it for future plays,” Thurman said.

While planning the setting, many tech-theater volunteers were making the scenery and helping the actors with their costumes.

“It took us two weeks to make and paint each scene on the stage,” Tech-theater student Joseph Valenzuela said. “Onstage decor took about a week to paint and make the chairs and tables.”

Students auditioned to be some of the important characters seen in the play, such as “Robo Joe,” who is played by Joel Ballesteros.

“We started rehearsing in March,” Ballesteros said. “Everyday, we would rehearse for two hours.”

The play was performed on April 2. De La Rosa greeted the audience and thanked them for coming to the show before it started. During the play, characters would run off stage, which made the audience laugh. After the play, people applauded the actors, tech-theater crew, director, and De La Rosa.

“I was very excited when I heard that it was being announced that my play was being performed,” De La Rosa said. “Although I expected a little more from the play, I still thought it was good.”